Bob Withers on GMB and This Morning today

[HandsOffMyRights]

Psychoanalyst Bob, who wrote the excellent piece for yesterday's Mail, has just gone head tp head with India W on GMB. I didn't see it, but there's plus one and catch up.

He's on This morning at 10.30.

Thank you Orchid
That is so helpful to see how callous those interruptions and minimisations were. It's breathtaking.

B- The concern is that if there are too many children who go down the medical route, they may make irreversible changes to their bodies…
M – But!
B – excuse me, just let me finish. And it’s a child protection issue because if somebody did transition for the wrong reasons say like they were autistic and they felt that they could solve their emotional problems by medically transitioning and the problem with that is that they could discover later on that they haven’t really got the benefit that they thought they would.
M – can I just interject because immediately I think we need to be really careful about how we’re referring to transgender children.

Look how MB wanted to stop BW saying it and how assertive BW had to be to get these extremely important points about safeguarding and health out.

Bergdorf was like a petulant child in that interview. I'm a bit annoyed that my italics highlighting the stresses Munroe put on some words didn't come across.

And I'm sorry for misspelling Munroe.

And they were lying when they said they think this should be talked about. All Bergdorf wants is for trans children to be 'doted on' by their peers and venerated for being stunning and brave.

My year 7 child tells me that coming out as gay makes you really popular and considered very cool at their school.

No apologies necessary, it's great.

Great work Orchid

Presumably MB was happy with this puff piece in the Daily Mail four years ago? www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3038336/Glamorous-transgender-model-DJ-beat-bullies-called-effeminate-fulfil-dream-woman.html

Thanks so much for that, Orchid

*P2 – final point here. Many trans children are also autistic which leads them to question their gender identity because of this and the tavi has reported that 35% of children who are referred to the centre from 2011 have been autistic.
M – but how many autistic people aren’t transgender as well? We need to look at the balance there. And also the majority aren’t autistic either. I think the two can be apart, but they can be together as well. *

Thanks for that, Orchid. Munroe needs to brush up on Munroe's stats skills if Munroe thinks 35% representation of autistic children at the Tavistock referrals reflects the number of autistic children in the general population. Strange to mention the point which refutes your argument rather than proves it, unless you're a bit dim.

Sorry meant to bold the first bit which is a quote of the transcription from Orchid.

Yes, thanks, Orchid. I actually find these pieces too painful to watch, so it's good to be able to read them. Lots of LOLS at MB misunderstanding the point about wolves. Not the sharpest tool in the box.

Yes, I can see that becoming a new drop in misdirection bit of old bollocks that gets repeated 'Transphobes compare trans kids to feral children'!!' Fecking idiot.

”I found this really concerning because she was saying that trans kids are popular like it’s some kind of abomination, like it’s a bad thing. When it’s better that trans kids are popular and that they’re doted on by their peers and encouraged to be who they are by their peers”

Monroe has this all wrong. It’s awful that children are bullied for being different. Much better if the are accepted and treated equally by their peers.

But if you become automatically popular - doted on, to use M’s terminology - for being trans, then there’s potential active encouragement to transition for any child who feels out of place. The risk is they aren’t “encouraged to be who they are” but instead are encouraged to transition.

It’s also intensely frustrating as Munroe seems unable to listen. Instead M is just bursting to speak and misses/ignores the point consistently.

Thanks Orchid

So Munroe is saying let's ignore concerned parents and teachers, medical practitioners, statistics, anything reported in the Mail, and gays - because what do they know? - and let's just celebrate trans, because trans trumps everything!
(A bit flippant perhaps, but so was she.)

Sadly I think some people WILL hear the bit about wolf children and take away the idea that Bob W just compared trans children to wolves, because MB kept interrupting his point.

After all, Linda Bellos was prosecuted for a quip that she would 'take her glasses off and...' -- making her obviously much more dangerous in some people's eyes than young 6 ft male persons who actually thump older female ones.

Did Bob W appear again later? I'm sure I saw a mention of it but haven't seen the clip.

Latin - I particularly enjoyed MB pointing out that 35% isn't a majority like a killer point

orchid again
I wish I'd not watched it. I wish I could have just read it. Munroe flick pout is really just so irritating
It's the interrupting of people. And the smugness.

Transcribing it was better. I didn't have to look so much - I was listening!

It does seem a bit weird to have Munroe Bergdorf, India Willoughby and Sarah Brown up against Bob Withers.

The only one who is a parent is India Willoughby and none of them have any expertise in child development, autism, psychology or anything else relevant.

Why are they being pitted against Bob Withers? Wouldn't it make more sense to have someone who works with LGBT teens or a representative of Mermaids or a specialist in autistic kids?

The National Autistic Society estimates that about 1.1% of the UK population has autism, they’ve based that on data from the 2011 census.

If 35% of the children referred to Tavistock have autism, then there’s a hugely disproportionate amount of autistic children being referred.

I don’t see how you could look at that disproportionate amount of autistic children referred and not wonder WTF is going on with that. It’s very difficult to avoid a suspicion that at least some of these children are motivated by the wrong reasons, as Bob W suggested.

Munroe cannot sustain an argument. Nor can India Willoughby. It's just posturing and playing to the gallery.

And this will not work when it comes to children.

The fact they have no idea just means the wheels are coming off that much quicker.

What is the wolf story? Is it somthing that really happened in Finland or just an analagy.

Sorry if I'm being dumb, I just watched the this morning interview and they didn't let Bob finish the story.

What is the wolf story? Is it somthing that really happened in Finland or just an analagy.

To understand it in context you need to know that playing in the forest features heavily in Finnish childhoods, since most settlements are surrounded by forest and spending time in the outdoors is a major part of Finnish culture.

So, when adolescent Finnish girls with rapid onset gender dysphoria decide they want hormones they know that they need to come up with a story that will convince the gender clinic that they have always been dysphoric. What Bill actually said was that suspiciously large numbers of them have been presenting at the Finnish gender clinics claiming to have spent most of their childhoods "playing in the forest imagining themselves as male wolves".

Only a person who is hard of thinking would jump to the conclusion that Bill was comparing transgender children to feral children. What he was doing as pointing out that those girls with ROGD had obviously been copying each other's homework. They are probably too young to get their ideas from foreign language websites, and the wolf in the forest story is very probably something they've seen on a Finnish youtube or tumblr site.

OrchidInTheSun thank you so much. It's so much clearer written down & really important to see what is going on with the different speakers.
Lots of & for you!

I don’t see how you could look at that disproportionate amount of autistic children referred and not wonder WTF is going on with that. It’s very difficult to avoid a suspicion that at least some of these children are motivated by the wrong reasons, as Bob W suggested.

Like I said on another thread, if black kids were just ten percent more likely to be trans than white kids it would be a major cause for concern. What could be happening in the black community to make black kids want to chemically castrate themselves or demand surgery? What is going on in schools or social services that allows this to happen?

And yet here we are with autistic kids being dozens of times more likely to be referred for transgender reassignment than neurotypical kids and nobody is batting an eye.